Legislative Update for 05/22/15

While the House was working diligently on their budget proposal, the Senate continued on with business as usual, except it was almost too calm? There a handful of committee meetings, but the real work seemed to be going on behind the scenes to work on their budget proposal in light of what they saw in the House proposal. A few lighter moments came during the week when both chambers honored the Duke Blue Devils for their national championship and also honored Miss North Carolina. Always interesting seeing legislators trying to get selfies!

The House focused almost exclusively on the budget, trying to review, amend and debate the various provisions that would combine to spend over $22 billion dollars in each of the next two years. There were many stops and starts as negotiations continued into yesterday over the final package. The House voted to approve the budget on a bi-partisan vote of 93-23 at 1:15 this morning with a handful of Republicans and Democrats voting against the budget. There were almost 100 amendments debated and discussed in committees and on the floor of the House yesterday. Read the full report here.